He conducted two Beethoven symphonies, the Sixth ("Pastoral") and Seventh, and his signature moves — fussy tempo manipulations, peculiar accenting and grand showboating gestures and poses — were all fully intact.
You could quibble with interpretive turns of all sorts: the sometimes extreme tempo manipulations, the transformation of the third movement from an earthy sequence of dance scenes into a genteel dreamscape, or the hyperturbulent finale, for starters.
The Bartok suite (Op. 14), for all the energy and razor-sharp detail of Mr. Shihor's reading, fell victim to tempo and dynamic manipulations that bent the movements out of shape.
What Mr. Maazel seems to mean by Brahms the Romantic is that Brahms is even more Romantic than anyone thought, assuming your definition of Romantic is bloated, full of tempo-stretching phrase manipulation, magnified dynamics and vulgar overstatement.
There's not a word about rubato (a local manipulation of tempo) or portamento (the unbroken carrying of tone from one pitch to another), for good reason.
Mr. Eschenbach did show a tendency to rely too much on sudden manipulations of tempo to make expressive points, which sometimes turned the music-making a little jerky.
From there, Mr. Glass's journey includes manipulations of tempo and textural density, contrasts between slow-moving melodies and brisk accompaniments, and forays into the world of harmonic tension and chromaticism.
Mr. Thielemann, who has strong interpretive ideas about Germanic masterworks, strove for a weighty gravity, somewhat like Furtwängler's approach to the score, with bold manipulations of tempo, striking attention to inner details and textures and vivid musical characterization.
Even for admirers there are times when his manipulations of color, tempo or dynamics can seem fussy, or when the degree to which he thinks about phrasing and shape can place a work's simplest charms at an unnecessary distance.
The tasting menu reaches what may be its most sophisticated American form at Alinea in Chicago, where Grant Achatz composes meals that are almost like symphonies in their skillful manipulation of complexity, volume, tempo and harmony.
Sulfinate 8 was coupled to the appropriate aldehyde to yield α,β-unsaturated ester 9. Protecting group manipulation followed by a Tempo-mediated oxidation yielded the carboxy ester 11.
